May 23, 2012
German Bunsen Society honors Matthias Kling
Submitted by Division of Communications and Marketing
Matthias Kling, assistant professor of physics, has received the Nernst-Haber-Bodenstein prize from the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry. The award honors outstanding scientific achievements of young scientists in the area of physical chemistry. Kling received the award for his work on the control of electron and nuclear dynamics in molecules, in particular the laser-induced localization of electrons on femtosecond to attosecond timescales.
Kling is the principal investigator for a project that involves researchers from the James R. Macdonald Laboratory at Kansas State University. They observed double ionization events at the time scale of attoseconds and showed that these ionization events occur earlier than thought – a key factor to improving knowledge of correlated electron dynamics. The work appeared in a recent issue of Nature Communications.
Germany Bunsen Society President Martin Quack presented the award to Kling on May 17 in Germany at the annual conference on physical chemistry. Kling is on research leave at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, where he is performing related research.